Hard Reality Hardly Promised
Like other working class kids at Yale, I’ve struggled with the transition from my public high school to a university as rigorous as Yale. I’ve made a misstep or two as a result. Unfortunately, Yale’s inadequate aid structure can turn minor academic failures into costly financial nightmares. I, like countless others, have had to drop classes in past semesters, and I found myself a half credit short at the end of 2015. My dean reassured me that a half-credit deficiency wouldn’t keep me from advancing to senior status, but I would have to make the credit up before graduation. This meant that I had two choices: take a six-credit semester my senior year or make it up in the Yale Summer Session. The student income contribution totally eliminated the possibility of spending my summer in New Haven. The cost of the summer session would have been manageable after scholarships, but adding the student income contribution would have proved ruinous. I had been looking forward to a senior fall spent enjoying my studies and participating in the presidential election to the fullest extent, but now I’m facing a senior year that begins with me totally shutting out extracurricular commitments in order to manage a six-credit semester in addition to my job. The hard reality of my senior year will hardly be the Yale experience I was promised.
